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About Me

I've been cross stitching since I was a little girl, as both of my Grandmother's were passionate about it!
I originally had this blog to enter some card making challenges and now intend to use it to keep track of my cross stitching stash and finishes.....

Monday, 1 June 2015

I did manage to get this finished in time, even if I'm a little late in posting this!

June - Wild Rose by Ellen Maurer-Stroh

As you can see I skipped ahead and stitched June 'Wild Rose' as a birthday card for a friend of my mum's. It turned out to be a lovely easy stitch, so definitely one I will stitch again for someone else (which I will probably end up doing once my mum's other friends get a look at it!!!)

Well, this is a very short post as I always seem to have a hundred other things to do these days. Hopefully soon, the list will get shorter and I can have more blogging time again.

Tuesday, 19 May 2015

I can't believe this is my first post for May. Where has this month gone?? I have been frantically stitching May cottage and it is finally finished.

I know I should have ironed it before I took the photo, but I was just so pleased to have it finally finished (I knew I should have started with June...) What I have to decide now is how to finish it. All along I had thought to frame it in the frames from the Family Tree Co, like they have illustrated in the picture that CCN uses to advertise the chart, but I cannot find a supplier anywhere!!! So until then I'm just going to mull over a few ideas until I decide and start on June...

But that is going to have to wait until I finish my Flower of the Month SAL. I'm skipping a month this month and stitching June 'Wild Rose' this month for my mum, so I have a tight deadline and have to have it ready for June 1st. This is my progress so far:-

Just one more flower to complete and all the leaves, so hopefully I'll make it. Okay, I have to finish it even if I stay up all night on 31st!!!!

Anyway, I hope all of your stitching is progressing well. Looking forward to seeing all your progress.

Wednesday, 29 April 2015

And it's finished. Thank you for all your kind comments on my last post. I took Jo and Brigitte's advice and added some back stitching to the bottom flower. It does look better in real life, so thank you ladies!

The card is going to be for my aunt who has recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. Her's is very early stages so the prognosis is good and I'll send the card as a 'Thinking of You' card when she starts treatment.

Next flower for me is going to be the June flower, as my Mum wants it for a friend who has a birthday early June so I want to make sure I stitch it sooner rather than later! So it's roses for me next.

Off to start stitching.
x

p.s I also realised that I ordered the wrong count material the other day. I ordered 32 count for Santa's Village instead of 28 count for May Cottage so I had to do a new order yesterday and guess what? A few more items made it on to the order list as well. Wonder how that happened????

Being so new to the blogging world, it was lovely to find out that I have been nominated for this award by rosey175 over at ishkabibble. Thank you so much rosey, hopefully it will bring a few new readers to my blog!

The purpose of this award is for bloggers to nominate fellow, mostly newer, bloggers that they wish to recognize. The goal is to bring attention to blogs that we think are "lovely" and enjoy reading. We hope others will enjoy reading these blogs also.In order to accept the award, the nominated blogger must follow these rules:

Thank the person who nominated you & link back to them in your post

Share seven facts about yourself

Nominate 10 other bloggers for the award

Now then seven facts about myself:

I have lived with my DH in this house for 18 months and we have practically destroyed it and rebuilt it around us. The first winter we had rain coming in through the roof and no heating! Upstairs is now finished, but downstairs is another story. Do not talk to me about dust. That is why I do not work on many WIPs at a time at the moment!

I love dogs and have two. Fleur is my eight year old Golden Retriever and Hope is my 4 year old Flatcoated Retriever. Hope also answers to the name of Dopey, so you can imagine what she is like.

I tutor children in English and Maths that are struggling at school. I love doing this and get great satisfaction from it. My youngest child is 6 and my eldest is 16. So it's never boring!

I live by the sea and don't think I could ever live far from water now.

I always wished I had a sister and used to think it unfair that my brothers each had a brother and a sister, whereas I was stuck with just two brothers!

I love gardening and can't wait till the house is finished and I can get started on the garden...

Finally I hate shopping and avoid it when possible.

And now for my nominations, in no particular order. I'm sure some have already been nominated before, but I wanted you all to know I appreciate your blogs and the time you all take on them. Please don't feel obligated to participate, this is just my way of saying 'thank you' to you!

Tuesday, 28 April 2015

My delivery from Sew and So has just arrived and I'm so excited to show off my purchases. First the necessary stuff:-

I really enjoyed my first attempt at making ornaments but wished I had some cording to try. As my Mum has decided she would like a few herself, she has treated me to the cording machine (what a lovely Mummy I have!!). I also ordered some 32 count linen lambswool to kit up some of the new stash and threads to replace those used in this months flower of the month and those I need for the next one I'm stitching.

Now onto the good stuff. I bought:-

It's my dream to have my own Needlework Shop as the local one's here are rubbish! But until then I'll just stitch this and hang it in my craft room (or Creative Room as my DD calls it) and dream away....

I'd like the whole set of these, to make up as ornaments. Oh well, one down...

There's a bit of a Country Cottage Needleworks theme in my shopping, but I do like the idea of having a picture to change over each month and I saw this series and I couldn't resist. I'm now beginning to think I should have started with June though....

And finally;-

A change to Mill Hill and a Debbie Mumm design. My WIP, Santa's Journey has hundreds of french knots in it and I mean hundreds. I've decided to replace them with beads, but I've never attempted beading before so I thought I try an ornament first. I couldn't resist this jolly snowman. There are four in the set, so I'm hoping I enjoy stitching him up as I'd like him to have friends! It's also my first time stitching on perforated paper - I'm a bit nervous about that!

Sadly that is it!!! First on the list to stitch is May Cottage. It will go on the rotation with the Flower of the Month as my Mum wants that as a gift for a friend. Santa will probably go on the back burner for a couple of weeks, but there is no rush for him!

Saturday, 25 April 2015

Well there hasn't been much stitching going on recently so I really must get my act together over the coming weeks as I'm really falling behind schedule. My flower of the month (sweet pea) has only got as far as this:-

I'm a bit disappointed with how the bottom flowers are looking as there doesn't seem to be much definition between the two. This is making me a bit reluctant to finish it!

On the other hand Santa's Journey has gone from this:

to this:

If you'd like to see the completed picture then please pop over to Laura at xstitchatoz here who stitched it for the magazine. (Thank you Jo at Serendipitous Stitching for teaching me how to do those links)

This means I only have one more complete page to do and then I can fill in the bit in the middle. The reason I stopped doing the middle pages is the design is by Maria Diaz and featured in Cross Stitch Collection Magazine Oct - Dec 14. I didn't have these magazines and couldn't get back issues of them except as downloads. The problem was the chart was so small when it was printed, I couldn't read it. When I enlarged it, I lost the clarity of the design and the symbols and I still couldn't read it so I'm stitching it from my computer. This is fine, except when you come to the next page and I miscounted by 1 stitch. By the time I realised my mistake I thought I was too far gone to frog it and thought I'd stitch all around and then adjust. I'm nearly at adjustment time. Wish me luck!

Anyway, I haven't been feeling too well lately (rotten migraines again) so to cheer myself up, I'm off to look at Sew and So's site. Let you know what I buy...

Friday, 17 April 2015

I can't believe it's the middle of April already and I haven't got much stitching to show! Santa's Journey has had progress made to it but I haven't got around to taking a photo of it yet. I do have one tiny small to show though. It came as a freebie in this months The World of Cross Stitching (TWCS) Magazine.

Tatty Teddy

Isn't he cute? While I was making him up into a card I did finish off two other cards that I'd stitched a while ago and as I haven't got much too show...

The first design is from a cross stitch book that I found at a bootfair about 12 years ago and the other is from an old issue of TWCS Magazine (I'll add the issue number when I find it!).

Friday, 3 April 2015

The top two are from i) The Cricket Collection and ii) is my Flower of the month SAL;
The bottom two are from iii) a freebie from www.cosmichandmade.wordpress.com/free-charts-2008 (again must learn how to do those links) and finally iv) The World of Cross Stitching magazine.

Now all I need to do is master the 'cording', but I'll save that for the first of my Christmas ornaments!

Monday, 30 March 2015

I've decided to finish this one as a little pillow. Unfortunately my LNS didn't have any interfacing in stock and (according to the blogs I've been reading as research) I need this as backing as this gives a better 'finish' to my ornaments. So I've had to order it on-line. Waiting patiently now (or not so) for the postman to deliver it!! It's going to be backed with the material in the photo, so hopefully it will look lovely when it's complete.

Saturday, 28 March 2015

Just a quick post, to prove that I have not forgotten about Santa's journey and to show that it has received a little love recently. Okay, it's only a little bit of love but Easter stitching has got in the way and I have been busy the last few days trying to finish my daffodils for the flower of the month SAL (more on that after the weekend). Anyway Santa's Journey has gone from this:

to this:-

(Sorry about the wrinkled aida. I really should iron it before taking the photos!!!!!)

More sky has appeared and you can probably just make out a yellow blob appearing! That's where I am now! I've got bored of the sky (as I knew I would...) and have started back on the buildings. Hopefully this will become the yellow church in time. Until then it's back to daffodils! Have a lovely stitchy weekend everyone!

Wednesday, 25 March 2015

I can't believe how quickly this month has flown by and Easter is just around the corner! And I'm so not ready!!!!

It's a good job I had stitched those three Easter cards earlier on in the year, because that is all I've done. Nothing else prepared.... So this week, I thought I'd better get stitching and this is what I've managed so far:-

All I have to do now is make them into ornaments (which I've never done before) and at least I'll have a few gifts to give out. I would have liked to have kept one for myself but I guess I'll have to do a restitch for that as I'll have completely run out of time to get them in the post. Oh well, there's always next year and I'm sure they would like an Easter Egg just as much....

Wednesday, 11 March 2015

I hate suffering from migraines!!!! I've had them all my life and sometimes I can deal with them and sometimes, like recently, they just seem to take over and I can do nothing about it. You would have thought that something calming like cross stitch would help, but unfortunately I get 'flashing lights' aura when the headache begins so I cannot concentrate on anything and have to walk around in very dark glasses as even the slightest light makes the pain worse. I have been hardly able to do any stitching at all. I pick things up, put in about ten stitches and then give up; it has been very frustrating. I do have something to show though, Look at what I found hiding away in the back of my Nana's wardrobe:-

I was looking for a Christmas picture that she used to put up (but as she's 90 now she doesn't bother), and I thought would love a chance at being displayed at my house. Actually, I don't remember the Christmas picture but because of the one I'm stitching at the moment my Mum thought I'd like Nana's as well, so we went looking for it. Well we found it, and my Nan casually mentioned that she'd stitched a partner for one of her Lanarte pictures that she'd never had framed and could we look for it..... We found this!!!! She denies all knowledge of stitching it!!!!! Now I know she must have done it about 15 to 20 years ago, but how can she forget all the work that went into this piece? I know she's 90, but she is all there mentally - well I thought she was!!! So I got it!!! Which I love as the moment I saw it, it made me think about my Grandpa pottering about in the garden planting up his annual flowers in the spring time ready to plant out in the summer and that just make me smile.

Monday, 23 February 2015

I had to substitute some of the blue DMC colours, but I don't think it looks too bad. I haven't stitched the outside border yet as I'm going to make them into cards and I've had to order some larger aperture cards and until they arrive, I don't know whether the border will suit or not - so I'll wait and see...

This wonderful SAL is hosted by Alyssa at Brownie's Chair (I really must learn how to do those magic hyperlinks) and next month it is 'Jonquil' or Daffodil, which I'm hoping will be a quicker stitch for me as I really struggled with this one. I blame it on the stress of Hope's operation, (luckily the lump was benign) but I am pleased that I managed to finish it. I still have to start January's though....

I also have another finish to report from my project list - hooray! It was one of the small projects, though, but I'm still counting it!!! I managed to finish one of the Forever Friends teddies and it will become a birthday card for my mum when my larger aperture cards arrive. Here it is so far:-

I hope she likes it!

I have stitched up a couple of other smalls this month, which will be made into cards and I've added photos of these onto my 'finishes' page (if you're interested!). For now it's back to Santa's Journey.

Friday, 20 February 2015

It's been a difficult week, which has seen very little stitching and blogging being done. My youngest dog had to have an operation, that turned out to be a lot bigger than anticipated and she has needed a lot of looking after! 24/7 attention has been called for to prevent her licking the wound, removing any staples, jumping, playing etc. It has been a tough time and very little sleep has been had!!! Older dog is also very put out at the attention number 2 is getting and is doing a lot of sulking!!!

Santa's Journey has had very little progress:-

Santa's Journey by Maria Diaz

As it has been difficult to stitch with a poorly Flatcoat sitting on your lap!

However, I have made progress on February's flower of the month SAL (photo to follow at the end of the month). This has taken me a lot longer to stitch than I thought it would as I've been, a bit, all over the place with stitching it. Usually, I'm quite methodical with my stitching - stitching in blocks or colour groups for example. But for some reason, I've been stitching this very randomly! I started in the middle, then did a bit bottom left, then top right, then back to the middle.... I blame worry over the dog....

Wednesday, 11 February 2015

Okay, sorting out my finishes page is taking me longer to do than I thought. I just haven't found the time yet - but I will.... soon!!!

But I am just about to join my first SAL. I am so looking forward to it!! It is being run by Alyssa at Brownie's Chair and I've just come across her blog and the SAL she is hosting is all about a low-stress, flower of the month SAL - which sounds perfect for me!! I have a little work to do, though, to try and catch up with January's flower - carnation - but I'll start with February and see how I get on!

It'll give me a break from Santa's Journey anyhow and I might be able to turn it into a Mother's Day card for my Grandmother. (In England, Mothering Sunday is on the 15th March this year.) and will help me with my other goals, if I can make them into cards, so win, win!!!!

Tuesday, 3 February 2015

Well, it has literally been years!!! But in the intervening period, I have renewed my addiction to Cross Stitch and (over the last week or so) have become embroiled in the lives of those of the blogging 'cross stitch community' and thought 'what a wonderful idea!' I could do that and keep track of my stitching at the same time. It would also let me comment on some of the wonderful stuff I see out there on your pages as well....

So here goes....

What are my goals. To stitch from my stash where ever possible. I was far too late to join SFS, but if I can keep up with this blog, then that will be a goal from the future. However, real life this year does not leave much funds for stash buying, so SFS is a definite goal. I was very lucky in that my Mum bought me my current WIP. It is Santa's Journey by Maria Diaz and my current progress (from 5th January 2015) is: -

Santa's Journey by Maria Diaz

I'm a bit disappointed with the photo as it's made the Aida seem more white than cream and so doesn't show up all of the 'snowy' detail that I've done. I'm also stitching up lots of smalls to be made into cards as its another aim to send all handmade cards this year - photo's will follow!!

I also have two very old UFO's that are Lanarte charts that I think I must have had about 15 - 20 years. One is very near completion and they are both on the 'to do' list for this year. Again photo's will follow!!

One problem that I've got is by roaming through all the wonderful cross stitching blogs out there, I have come across all sorts of goodies that I never knew existed! It seems that those of you lucky enough to live in the USA have access to so much more stash at such better prices and now I'm hooked on internet sites and ebay looking up Lizzie Kate, Bent Creek, Little House Needlework and thinking ornaments, let alone getting big ideas such as HAED, Mirabilia and Nora Corbett.